SPOTLIGHT

Getting to that Stage

When you are Andie MacDowell, the thinking man’s ingénue of the 80s and 90s, and you are trying to raise three children out of the spotlight, a sprawling ranch in Missoula, Montana, is probably a pretty fair bet.

“That was a really idyllic place to grow up,” says Rainey Qualley, 24. She’s the middle of three children MacDowell shares with former model Paul Qualley. “We didn’t have TV or anything.” When Rainey, her younger sister, Margaret, and their older brother, Justin, were still young, MacDowell relocated them to a place slightly more urban. “It was kind of a culture shock moving to North Carolina,” Rainey, who is quick with a joke, says, laughing. “We had neighbors! We were just used to being wilderness children.”

But despite their distance from the limelight, the Qualley sisters, both lifelong dancers, were ambitious from a young age. “I was very determined,” explains Margaret, 19, who will make her television debut this summer in HBO’s The Leftovers. “I left home at 15 to go to the North Carolina School of the Arts.” But even after being offered a prestigious apprenticeship and studying at American Ballet Theatre, the young woman realized her heart wasn’t in dance—it was in acting. Now she’s living in New York, taking time off from N.Y.U. to film the HBO series, in which she acts alongside marquee names such as Justin Theroux and Liv Tyler.

Rainey has had a bit more experience on-screen, having appeared with her mother in 2012’s Mighty Fine and starring in the indie romance Falcon Song. She was also Miss Golden Globe in 2012, an episode she describes as “an overwhelming way to move to L.A.” But she’s currently focused on her singing career; she splits her time between Los Angeles and Nashville, where she’s recording “bluesy country” tracks, the first of which will hit radio stations this spring.

Whatever corner of the country the Qualley sisters end up in, the two seem destined, like their mother, to become enduring beauties. Be prepared to see their faces, and hear their voices—infused with that unshakable small-town warmth—increasingly on the national stage.